LaBelle said she was asked to be a judge on the series before Paula Abdul; a rep for the show had no comment on whether she was. LaBelle feels like the judges’ comments to the contestants are too mean.

“The comments that were made, they could make you like wanna kill yourself,” the 65-year-old singer said.

LaBelle’s advice to singing hopefuls: “If you believe in yourself, just go for it. What do you have to lose? And when people tell you ‘You can’t,’ you have to say, ‘I can.'”